Alibaba Group in the Marketplace of China Case Study

Alibaba Group in the Marketplace of China - Case Study Example The case describes the corporate strategy of Alibaba Group, one of the leading e-commerce international organizations. The company was started in the year 1999, and since then it had grown rapidly and grasped the e-commerce market through their business approaches. Despite the financial turmoil in a global business environment, Alibaba Group had placed itself strongly in the market and beset the difficulties to progress further. The aggressive growth strategy had helped the organization to achieve the competitive advantage. The company started providing basic facilities to its users and increased its customer base. Problem Statement The creation of corporate advantage at Alibaba Group has been discussed in this segment. It also deals with the fact that if the corporate advantage thus created is sustainable. Alternative Solutions and Approaches to the Problem The main strategy which provides Alibaba Group with corporate advantage is its series of growth movements. Alibaba Group had ex panded its market reach rapidly with the introduction of Taobao in the year 2003, which is an internet shopping platform. Jack Ma understood the prospects in the e-commerce sector and accordingly had taken possible steps to achieve higher market share. The keyword bidding was becoming beneficial in China, therefore, Taobao launched â€Å"Zhi Tong Che† service in the year 2008 which provides people to bid for keywords in exchange of special advertisement status. As trust is one of the vital factors for performing business in China, Taobao had introduced â€Å"Alipay† service in the year 2004. Through this service, the company successfully eliminated the settlement risk of payment which had assisted to generate faith among sellers and customers. In the year 2005, Alibaba Group had acquired â€Å"China Yahoo!† in order to strengthen its market presence. This strategy lets Alibaba Group integrate and join resources for development. The other strategy of Alibaba Grou p included investing in the international market to attract more customers. In the year 2006, the company had invested in â€Å"Koubei.com†. Besides, the company has also started the joint business with â€Å"Softbank Corporation† in Japan.

Does nationalism need to be based on ethnic myths of descent Essay

Does nationalism need to be based on ethnic myths of descent - Essay Example Historical process of nationalism will indicate that the nationalism as a process started in the Europe during 19th Century.(Anthony,1993). On a larger scale it attempts to provide the criterion for the creation or ownership of the legitimacy of power over a State by people having certain characteristics. This doctrine therefore indicates that the societies in the world are divided based on the nations each having their own distinctive characteristics and as such the only form of legitimate government can only arise if national self government is imposed over the State. Thus nationalism is necessarily considered as a political ideology which advocates the case of controlling the State by a nation. Since State derives the legitimate obediences it is therefore argued that to wield the control over the population and achieve political legitimacy it is critical that the power must be relocated to a nation to govern the State. (Featherstone,1990) French Revolution is considered as the starting point from where the emergence of strong nationalistic sentiments started to emerge and dominate the political scene of the countries. At this point, it was clearly established that the only sovereign is the nation with the sole power of making laws to its citizens therefore the individuals must show the loyalty to the nation. French Revolution is critical in the sense that it was the turning point to break away the barriers that separated the various regions of the country and united them as a one nation based on single language and culture.